in order to inform me as early as possible of the state of the river he was to send back one of the men with the necessary information as soon as he should satisfy himself on this subject.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

Prince Andrew entered and paused facing her at the foot of the sofa on which she was lying.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

-21- I don't suppose I was looking so dashed unlike something out of an Edgar Allan Poe story myself, for, as you can readily imagine, the news item which I have just recorded had got in amongst me properly.
— from Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

It was exactly a scene, and exactly among people, where he had apparently least to do, and least temptation to go.
— from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

With a New York dateline, a copyright notice, and even a printers' union label all neatly falsified, the book expressed opposition to Roosevelt's war.
— from Psychological Warfare by Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger

Scaurus made now an expedition against Petrea, in Arabia, and set on fire all the places round about it, because of the great difficulty of access to it.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, all poured out their fulminatory thunders upon this city.
— from The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors; Or, Christianity Before Christ by Kersey Graves

A great wave of compassion had swept away his indifference and impatience: she stood before him as an exposed and pitiful figure, to be saved at all costs from farther wounding herself in her mad plunges against fate.
— from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

She can repeat all the English tragedies as well as ever a player in Drury Lane!-and, indeed, is so fond of plays, that to be near the stage she has taken lodgings in a court hard by the theatre; but you shall see—you shall see—here's the last letter she sent me.”
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

All of the switches and fuses, except the main trolley fuse and bus-line fuse, which are encased and placed under the car, are carried on this switchboard.
— from The New York Subway, Its Construction and Equipment by Interborough Rapid Transit Company

I am empty air; people look through me without seeing me.
— from Tales From Jókai by Mór Jókai

Although I have been taught to use the hanging guard myself ever since I began to play, I unhesitatingly say that the upright guard is the better one, as enabling a player to save time in the attack.
— from Broad-Sword and Single-Stick With Chapters on Quarter-Staff, Bayonet, Cudgel, Shillalah, Walking-Stick, Umbrella and Other Weapons of Self-Defence by Headley, Rowland George Allanson-Winn, Baron

Desiring to start as early as possible, that we might reach Rosny on the second evening, I roused Simon Fleix before it was light, and learning from him where the horses were stabled, went out to attend to them; preferring to do this myself, that I might have an opportunity of seeking out a tailor, and providing myself with clothes better suited to my rank than those to which I had been reduced of late.
— from Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France by Stanley John Weyman

The axle which raises the stamp has on each side two arms, which are two palms and three digits distant from each other, and which project from the axle a foot, a palm and two digits; penetrating through them are bolts, driven in firmly; the arms are each a palm and two digits wide and thick, and their round heads, for a foot downward on either side, are covered with iron plates of the same width as the arms and fastened by iron nails.
— from De Re Metallica, Translated from the First Latin Edition of 1556 by Georg Agricola

He asked a number of girls to dance, but they were all “engaged,” and politely showed their cards.
— from Red Rock: A Chronicle of Reconstruction by Thomas Nelson Page

Attaching himself more and more to Biron every year, he followed him in all his campaigns and expeditions, and paid him back, by many a service and many a care, the kindness he had shown him in his infancy: so that twice had he saved the marshal's life, and twice, by his active vigilance, had he enabled his leader to defeat the enemy, before he himself had reached the age of eighteen.
— from The Desultory Man Collection of Ancient and Modern British Novels and Romances. Vol. CXLVII. by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James

Yet, when I now look back on that pleasant Southern home, she seems as essential a part of it as the mocking-birds or the magnolias, and I cannot convince myself that in returning to it I should not find her there.
— from Army Life in a Black Regiment by Thomas Wentworth Higginson

The gens embraces a part only of the descendants of a supposed common ancestor, and excludes the remainder; it also embraces a part only of a family, and excludes the remainder.
— from Ancient Society Or, Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery, through Barbarism to Civilization by Lewis Henry Morgan